


Forgotten Memories, Unwanted Scars

by edelweissroses



Series: Green Meadows, Dark Skies [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Autism, Autistic Newt Scamander, Childhood Trauma, Echolalia, Foreshadowing, Gen, Nonverbal Communication, Personal Growth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So Much Foreshadowing to GMDS, Social Anxiety, Young Credence Barebone, Young Newt Scamander
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 17:23:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14958863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edelweissroses/pseuds/edelweissroses
Summary: *Takes place before Green Meadows, Dark Skies*Credence and Newt's lives have been entangled since the very beginning.Having lost touch when Credence returned to America with his Mother, the unlikely friends' paths diverged. Their early friendship remained forgotten as they grew older but, their impact on each other's lives remains abundantly clear.Drabbles about the childhood of Credence, Newt, and perhaps other beloved characters.





	Forgotten Memories, Unwanted Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Bonjour new and returning readers! 
> 
> My loveliest lovelies and most darling of darlings!
> 
> Since I'm studying in Paris this summer, I'm unable to update the full-length chapters of Green Meadows, Dark Skies as often as I want. The series is most definitely continuing on however, the next update is looking closer towards mid-July. In the meantime, I wanted to keep dipping into and exploring this wonderful universe together with you and provide all y'all with marvelous content: so, here we are! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it as much as I loved writing it.

Newton desperately clung onto his Mother’s skirts, twirling his golden hair between his fingers and hiding his freckled face in the safe and comforting folds of the soft patterned linen.

Everyone was speaking too loudly.

A cataclysmic cacophony of laughs and cries, bellows and whispers, phlegm-filled coughs and violent sneezes carried through the wind and straight into his unguarded ears. He heard and processed every sneaking detail of their lives: various scandals around the block, how their brother had complained that they were being underpaid, how their Mother-In-Law was already making Christmas plans despite it being June...

Heels clacked against the cobblestone streets. Coats of absinthe, lavender, gold, and scarlet whooshed past. The sun beat down against Newton’s back. The light somehow blinding his eyes even when closed and hidden.

He hated it.

He hated _this._

He didn’t understand why Mummy took him to the gardens in the first place.

She was meeting with her friends and they were supposed to go on a nice, summertime picnic. Mummy put on his nice Sunday clothes that itched. She combed his constantly knotted hair, pulling at the strands until they hurt his scalp. She put on his shiny brown leather shoes that were too tight around his toes and _Newton just couldn’t stand it!_

A low whine escaped his throat.

Mummy reached around and threaded her long fingers through his golden hair.

“Oh Newton…”

Something about her voice unnerved him – as always whenever people spoke. Newton had noticed not too long ago that he could never quite… _understand_ what people felt about him. They would say the same things but, something about their voice – something that he miraculously couldn’t hear or discern – made it mean something different.

Newton studied them.

Drawing his parents and Theseus and his schoolmates in his notebooks and replaying the scenes that confused him over and over and over again as if it would somehow reveal the unimaginable. But, he still couldn’t wrap his head around it.

So, Newton truly didn’t know whether Mummy was sympathetic to his plight or if she was exasperated with him.

Probably the latter.

After all, _Theseus_ was acting perfectly. Stoically quiet and obedient. He didn’t squirm in his itchy clothes or pull at his too tight shoes or hide cowardly behind his Mother’s back. Theseus stood prim and proper – like a little gentleman – and every so often, patted Newton’s shoulder.

Tears filled his eyes when Theseus reached over to do exactly just that. His older brother hesitated, his brows raising in alarm, before tugging on Mummy’s sleeve.

“Oh darling,” Mummy hummed and stopped suddenly. She gently removed Newton’s hands from her patterned skirts, causing him to squeal in horrified alarm at his only comfort being taken away. Mummy pivoted on her heel and knelt down before him.

“We’re almost there,” she pulled out her ivory handkerchief as he hiccupped and wiped at his teary eyes, “Just a little bit longer, my sweet Artemis, and we’ll be able to eat. And then afterwards we can go to the _zoo!”_

Mummy beamed widely, trying her best to make him feel better.

“You like the zoo, don’t you, darling? We can stay at the tarantula exhibit for as long as you like this time,” her smile wavered though when another sob ripped through Newton’s small 6-year-old body, making him hiccup and quiver. “It’s alright, my darling. No need to cry. Just a little further, okay? Can you do that for me, honey?

Newton shook his head – aggressively no.

Not even the promise of tarantulas could help.

His hands flew up to his ears. He rocked rapidly back and forth on his heels and hummed exponentially loud to show off his disapproval but, Mummy didn’t understand. She _never_ understood. So, as always, she merely sighed and leaned over to embrace him.

But, Newton couldn’t take that.

With all the noise and colors and bright lights and whooshing coats and itchy clothes and too tight shoes, he couldn’t handle _that._

So, he did what he always did.

He _ran._

“Newton!”

“Arty!”

Newton slammed his hands repeatedly over his ears and ran as quickly as his little legs could take him, trying desperately to find someplace quiet and safe and away from the lights and colors and noises.

He tumbled over an upturned stone and scraped his chin against the street.

Warm, sticky blood dribbled down his neck and nauseating metallic copper filled his mouth, causing Newton to cry even more at the added stimulus. _It was just too much, too much, too much, too too too too much!!!_

But, he pulled himself up and continued running.

He bolted through the thick crowds, weaved around indigo coats and faded boots and rosy pink dresses. Newton heard Mummy and Theseus calling after him but, he couldn’t stop. His feet were just moving on their own now – he didn’t even need ( _or want_ ) to think about it anymore.

He just… _ran._

The garden eventually became a forest. The forest eventually became a lake.

Newton slowed down and stopped completely. He tilted his head to the side, focusing not on the scenery around him but on the noise.

_Or lack thereof._

Crickets chirped in the grass. Frogs and toads croaked and _ribbett_ ed on the shore within the gently swaying reeds. Canaries and other petite songbirds sang their sweet melodies as they swooped – _danced_ – through the branches high above him. The water _plip-plipp_ ed as a beautiful alpine newt – with an orange belly and spots running down it’s sides – slipped inside the lake.

_Silence._

This was what Newton considered as silence.

He threw off his shoes in an instant, watching the detested brown leather go _kerplunk_ in the lake and making large ripples in the water that made the reeds sway and the toads croak. He liked that noise. The sound of water in any shape and form.

It reminded him of the color blue.

Not just any ole blue though – no, turquoise. It reminded him of the color _turquoise._ A nice, clear shade of absolute comfort and serenity.

Newton peeled off his scratchy trousers and jacket and cast them aside, tossing his shirt into the pile soon after, until he stood in just his undergarments and mismatched polka-dotted socks. He approached the area where water met land and stepped cautiously inside. A shiver ran down his spine.

It was _cold_ and he _loved_ it.

Newton wriggled his feet, watching the ripples radiating outwards and the sunlight hitting the water just right, revealing a sudden burst of color like a secret pirate treasure. This was one of his favorite pastimes: watching refracted rainbows. They were like a hidden secret that only he knew of and could find everywhere: in the bedroom window in the afternoon right before sunset, through Mummy’s good crystal, in the piece of glass he found in the backyard a week ago…

Newton liked the way it felt – the discovery, the bliss. The complexity and simplicity of it all.

He flapped his hands excitedly, overwhelmed with _feeling_ , and squealed.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Newton flinched at the sudden, unexpected sound and his hands immediately flew to his ears. He turned around and stared wide-eyed at the stranger, humming loudly – not liking how the noise hurt him and interrupted his serene silence and secret rainbows.

The toddler flinched simultaneously and stepped backwards, hiding his mouth behind frighteningly white hands.

_Merlin’s Sagging White Beard!_

Even from a distance, Newton swore that he could see the squiggling greenish-blue veins across his porcelain white – almost _see-through_ his skin was so pale – hands. Thick obsidian curls brushed across the American’s shoulders and his widened eyes – blacker than the blackest night – didn’t help his eerie visage.

He looked like the wandering phantom of a murdered child. A ghostly warning straight out of the Brothers Grimm’s fairytales; but, Newton knew better than to judge by appearances.

“I’m sorry,” the toddler apologized, waving his hands in front of his face now, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Newton appreciated the apology – not many people did whenever he was surprised like this and had to mentally reboot. But, instead of expressing as such, he merely continued humming. He had no other choice: it was either this or meltdown completely.

But, the toddler didn’t understand that. How could he? So, he hesitated, uncertain on what to do until he stuttered out, “Is e-everything okay? My Mommy’s p-picking herbs around here. Should I-… Should I get her?”

And introduce even more noises? More voices?

Newton made a terrified screech of alarm.

The toddler flinched and smiled timidly, “So… no, then?”

Newton hummed contentedly.

The curly-haired American paused and twiddled his abnormally pale thumbs together, thinking it over. Newton appreciated the momentary silence, allowing his tuneless humming to fill his ears and drown everything out until all remaining senses of alarm and frightened pain was erased.

But then, the toddler just _had_ to ruin it.

“Okay!” the not-quite-a-phantom-but-totally-looks-like-it child nodded cheerily to himself and ran his hands down his suspenders, “Hum once for yes and make that… noisy-thingy for no. That okay?”

Newton reluctantly hummed.

The toddler beamed with the joy of his success. Newton slowly stopped rocking back and forth on his heels and tried to commit to memory that sight of pure… _heaven._ That smile – that wonderful _smile_ – was filled with such wonder and genuine awe that it was _blinding_ – as if Newton were staring into the very sun itself.

He tried to copy such a divine smile; but, he no doubtedly failed by how the toddler squirmed underneath his gaze.

 “So, uhm, are you okay?”

Newton fidgeted uncomfortably, twirling his hair around and around and _around_ his fingers. He didn’t quite know how to answer that – _really_ – and merely made a disgruntled noise.

“Huh?” the toddler furrowed his brows in obvious confusion, “Can you do that again?”

Newton narrowed his eyes instead and made a high-pitched whine, stepping further backwards into the water.

“So…,” the insufferable youth continued, “It’s… complicated?”

Newton sighed – exasperated – and nodded.

“Can I help?”

Newton shook his head furiously. He just wanted him to _leave._

Honestly, all that he’d wanted was to escape the noise of the gardens and rid himself of the memory of whooshing coats and too many conversations and braying laughter and sympathetic judgement.

He _needed_ to be alone.

Newton couldn’t stand his own _family_ fretting over him let alone some strange American wild child roaming around _shoeless_ in the forest.

“Oh…,” the _really-getting-on-his-nerves_ toddler looked defeated for a moment, frowning at his dirt-covered toes before suggesting hesitantly, “Could I… come over there?”

No.

Newton didn’t want that at all.

But...

But, there was something peculiar about how the toddler spoke to him…

Asking for permission instead of charging forward like everyone – even Mummy and Theseus – did around him…

The way that blinding smile lingered at the forefronts of his thoughts.

The fact that, while he actively didn’t want him there at all, he couldn’t deny that his senses weren’t _screaming in agony_ at him anymore…

Newton furrowed his brows and averted his gaze. He wriggled his feet, watching the ripples flow through the water.

He hummed.

 _Bregrudingly_.

Moments later, the American approached the lake and stepped into the crystal-clear water, shivering at the coldness.

“My name is Hermes. I’m sorry that I scared you earlier,” he quietly introduced himself and Newton couldn’t help but snort in amusement because _of course_ he just had to meet the only other person in the world named after a Greek God outside of his family.

He wriggled his feet again, creating dazzling rainbows with each and every movement.

“Can I… still ask whatcha doin’?”

Newton looked up and frowned.

“Oh, right. You don’t talk.” But Hermes, at least Newton thought, didn’t mean that in a particularly callous or diminutive manner. Just a simple acceptance of the way things were.

_Well, isn’t he in for a surprise?_

“You don’t talk,” Newton parroted.

A sudden thrill shot down his spine at the feeling. Of the liberating way his tongue met the roof of his mouth and clanged against his teeth. The delicious sensation of his lips curling to form words – _sentences_ – to communicate. To convey thought to speech.

He never did this in front of his family. Couldn’t. Every time Newton tried, his tongue seemed to turn into jelly and his mouth became welded shut. No matter how hard he tried – no matter how deeply he concentrated – he just couldn’t get the words he thought through his mouth.

All that would ever come out were grunts and squeals of pure emotion.

Not that that wasn’t _bad_ in itself.

Just different.

Hermes blinked and frowned, trying to understand, “You talk a little.”

_Yes! I do!_

“A little,” Newton repeated, nodding furiously, “A little. A little!”

“A little then,” Hermes confirmed with that beaming smile of success that Newton was determined to mimic to perfection on day because _, by Merlin,_ it was gorgeous. “ _Can_ you tell me what you’re doing?”

_If you were able to read my thoughts then, yes. Perfectly. Unfortunately, you’re not a Legilimens so…_

“You don’t talk,” Newton parroted once more.

“No, then.”

“No, then,” he exclaimed, relieved that Hermes ( _Seriously, what kind of name of that? Said the child named Newton Artemis Fido Scamander_ ) understood.

“Can you show me then?”

_Can I? Huh. Isn’t that a question? I tried to show Theseus the rainbows in the window but, **that** was a disaster, wasn’t it?_

“Show me,” Newton repeated slowly, mulling it over before nodding to himself and taking Hermes’ hand. For as frighteningly pale as his skin was, Newton would’ve assumed that that phantom’s hand would’ve been freezing like death itself; but, no… it was warm and absolutely delightful. He didn’t want to let go.

So, he didn’t.

“Show me,” Newton repeated, emphasizing each word, and looked down. Assuming that Hermes followed his lead, Newton wriggled his toes in the water, watching the resulting ripples refract the sunlight and create beautiful glittering rainbows.

Hermes said nothing.

Worried, Newton looked up.

And found his new friend absolutely _enchanted_ by this new discovery. His mouth dropped open in absolute wonder and his eyes widened three times their original size as he, too, wriggled his toes and created rainbows.

Newton hummed happily.

“I’m making rainbows with my feet!” Hermes exclaimed happily. He giggled and watched the iridescent light trapped in the crystalline waters, radiating outwards in perfect circles.

Newton’s breath caught in his throat.

_He sees it… He sees it!_

“Rainbow,” Newton confirmed, beaming.

The alpine newt – it’s body glistening a gorgeous greenish-black in the water – swam between them at that moment, causing Hermes to flinch and step backwards. But, Newton simply squealed in happiness and squat down in the water, pulling Hermes down with him.

“Ew, ew, ew,” Hermes recoiled and pressed himself against Newton’s back, afraid, “Icky.”

Newton rolled his eyes and gave Hermes a disparaging look.

_Just because something’s poisonous and lives in water doesn’t mean it’s icky. Merlin’s Beard, it’s my namesake for crying out loud-…_

_Wait a minute._

He looked straight at him, ensuring that he had Hermes’ full attention, and pointed at the carefree alpine newt swimming blissfully underwater, “Show me.”

“Huh?”

_Oh, come on. This is important. You have to understand!_

Newton wrinkled his nose in frustration and glanced back at the creature, cooing, “Show me.”

But, Hermes frowned and chewed at his lip, “You want to show me?”

_Why aren’t you getting it? Please, Hermes, think! Think hard about what I’m trying to say._

_I want you to know who I am._

“What’s your name?”

“Huh?” Hermes’ frown deepened and his brows flew into his forehead, creating deep wrinkles in otherwise unmarred skin, “It’s Hermes. Did you forget?”

Newton groaned in exasperation and lightly squeezed Hermes’ hand, willing his thoughts into him as if this small form of physical contact could allow such a ridiculous thing.

“Don’t talk,” Newton spoke slowly, pressing a fist against his chest, “Show me. What’s your name?”

Uncomfortable silence fell between the new friends.

Newton irritated by his incapability to communicate and Hermes frustrated by his own lack of understanding. Newton was just about to give up on the whole thing entirely when something peculiar – something joyful and enlightening – entered Hermes’ impossibly black eyes.

“Is your name Salamander?”

_Not quite._

Newton narrowed his eyes.

Though, deep within his soul, he was spinning with euphoric elation at his triumph.

“Newt then?”

“Newton,” he confirmed, hearing his name as that (since that’s what his name _was,_ after all) instead of how Hermes pronounced it.

“Newt,” Hermes rolled the name across his tongue, beaming that blinding smile of captured sunlight at him, “I like it.”

Newton blinked.

_Newt, huh? That’s not my name but…_

“Newt,” he repeated and smiled, “I like it.”

**Author's Note:**

> It took me forever to finally settle on the name that Credence had before he was adopted by Mary Lou Barebone. I went through Herman and Alessandro and Theodore and Davide; but, then, I remembered that the wizarding world has the fabulous penchant for naming their children the weirdest things and I liked the cheeky nod towards Theseus and Newt's ridiculous Greek God names so, I settled with Hermes.
> 
> Hermes Leonardo Ivan Lestrange.
> 
> Process that as you will.
> 
> Tune in next time on Forgotten Memories, Unwanted Scars!
> 
> So, here is where I usually ask how I'm doing with writing. Therefore, without further ado, is there anything that I should work on? Include more of? Less of? Please leave your comments and constructive criticism below. They are the sustenance in which I feed upon.


End file.
